I'm a transplanted Brit, living in Greece for the past quarter of a century.
Long of limb, broad of beam, open of mind and impatient of nature, I can sometimes wreak havoc without meaning to.
But I MEAN well....

Thursday, 22 December 2016

In the spirit of the season, I’m sharing a story that
was included in the ‘Festive Frights’ anthology published by the CW Publishing
House last Christmas. If it whets your appetite for more dark Christmas tales,
you can order the book here

Seasons’ Greetings

by AJ Millen

The harsh caw of a rook made Inspector Thomas Crumb
look up at the row of beech trees on the horizon, their branches outlined stark
against the early morning sky. He should have been home by now, sipping tea and
nibbling on toast and marmalade after a quiet night shift at Burbon-on-Lee’s
tiny police station.

It was cold outside, but colder yet inside Hathaway Cottage
as he stepped across the threshold. The living room was crammed with
overstuffed, once grand furniture and a collection of knick-knacks that only a
lifetime in the same place could accumulate. A forlorn plastic Christmas tree
sat in the corner, its lights blinking feebly. Three stockings hung from hooks
on either side of the old cast iron fireplace. One hook lay empty, spoiling the
careful symmetry.

A line of cards stood on the mantelpiece, pride of
place given to the largest one, an ornate affair which looked like it had been made
to order. It depicted a room like the one it sat in, but an picture book
version without the dust and discarded crockery.

Crumb approached the armchair facing the now cold
fireplace, and looked down. In it sat a man in his 80s, wearing a checked
flannel shirt, knitted tie and thick jumper vest. His thinning hair was slicked
back against his scalp, stray white hairs jutted out wildly from his eyebrows,
his skin stretched across closed eyelids and gaunt cheekbones. His ankles were
tied to the legs of the chair, wrists firmly bound in his lap, and something
was stuffed tight into his mouth. He was dead. Very, very dead. And it didn’t
look like he’d gone peacefully.

“Poor old bugger must have choked on whatever the evil
bastards shoved down his throat to keep him quiet,” said Jo from Forensics,
taking a large pair of tweezers and carefully pulling the make-shift gag out.
“See those broken veins, and the bluish tinge to his skin? Tell-tale signs.
Asphyxiation… what the hell?”

Her eyebrows shot up as she tugged the gag out to
reveal a length of colourful fabric with the name ‘Jake’ written in glitter
above a cheery appliqued snowman. A Christmas stocking – probably intended for
one of the grandchildren expecting for a festive visit.

“Funny thing is,” she continued “although obviously
some sadistic git did this, there’s no sign of a break-in. All the doors and
windows were locked from the inside. Nothing missing either – not even the box
of fifties our boys found at the back of his kitchen cupboard. If it hadn’t
been for Elsie Symms letting herself in with the spare key, it would have been
days before anyone realised they hadn’t seen old George.”

Marjory Falstaff was hard at work, oblivious to the
drama unfolding at the other end of the village. Humming along to the Christmas
carols playing in the background, she smiled as she gave added the finishing
touches. On the shelf behind her, an old grocer’s scales gave the slightest
creak as one side clicked down a fraction, bringing it a degree closer to
equilibrium with the weights neatly stacked in the opposite tray.

Admiring the finished greetings card, she added the
final detail. Her trademark – the shadow gate seal, three truncated crescent
moons intertwined to resemble a spiky flower. She’d been using it ever since
that day a year ago when she’d made the deal that gave her one last Christmas
with David.

Already well-known in the village for her crafting
skills, she’d been unable to do anything but cry after that cold November day
when the doctors delivered the news. David wouldn’t last a month, they’d said.
The cancer was too far gone. He wouldn’t see Christmas, they’d said.

That’s when she swore she’d do anything for more time
together. Promised the unthinkable to things she hardly knew (or dared
consider) hiding in the shadows, for the chance to celebrate his favourite holiday
one last time.

David confounded the doctors and rallied as the
darkest day of the year approached. His bloodshot eyes regained something of
their old spark as he watched Marjory place the angel atop the extravagant conifer
she’d dragged in from the garden and decorated with the glee of a six-year-old.
He’d enjoyed a mince pie washed down with mulled wine as they listened to the
Midnight Mass on the radio late on Christmas Eve. He’d even opened his gifts
with delight and managed to eat a full plate of turkey with all the trimmings
on Christmas Day. He was happy. So was his wife.

That happiness was short-lived. Marjory and David did
have their one last Christmas together, but that was all. Boxing Day dawned on
his cold corpse lying next to her in the bed they’d shared for more than forty
years.

Since then, she’d been adding her mark to every card
she sold at the village fete, church bazaars and, in the past two months,
online.

And now the time had come for her debt to be paid.

By ten in the morning, Jo had finished her examination
and was watching carefully as George Jenkins’ body was loaded into the
ambulance for its trip to the mortuary. It wouldn’t take long to formally
determine the cause of his death. It was the why and the how that was a
mystery.

Crumb sighed as he thought of the paperwork waiting
for him back at the station. But first, he called by Bellamy & Sons –
Funeral Directors, to let them know they could expect a new customer once the
coroner released the body.

A hush washed over him as he opened the door to undertaker’s parlour. A kind-eyed
woman rose at the sound of a visitor entering, carefully arranging her features
into an expression of solemn compassion. It was replaced with a tired smile when
she recognised the local CID man.

“Morning, Doreen,” said Crumb. “Another chilly one,
eh?”

Settling into the chair opposite Doreen Bellamy, he
continued: “I’ve just come from George Jenkins’ place. Another customer for
you, but I’m afraid he didn’t go naturally so you’ll have to contact the
coroner’s office to find out when you can get his body and make the
arrangements.”

“Seems it’s high season in our business,” Doreen sighed,
pushing a desk calendar showing the next two weeks across the page. Every
weekday was marked with names for cremation or burial. “The graveyard at St
Swithun’s will be more brown than green by New Year.”

Winter was always a busy time, but this year had
brought a bumper crop of freak accidents in addition to the usual cases of
pneumonia or dodgy tickers that carried off the old and infirm. A single mother,
determined to give her kids a jolly holiday despite her limited budget,
electrocuted when trying to fix the ancient wiring on fairy lights found in the
attic. A reckless teenage boy, his neck snapped like a twig when he slipped trying
to fix a large illuminated Santa to the roof of his family’s home. The aging
spinster found frozen solid on the park bench, the remains of seed she used to
feed the birds still clinging to the fibres of her woolen glove.

Time for a break, Marjory told herself. She stood up
from her work table, stretched and hobbled painfully to the kitchen. Filling
the kettle, she gazed out of the window. Weak winter sun was struggling to
break through the clouds, casting patches of warmth and light on her lawn to
melt the frost on the grass.

A robin landed on the handle of a spade leaning
against the shed. It turned in Marjory’s direction and seemed to look directly
at her with its bright eye.

“Hello, sweetheart,” said murmured. The robin
redbreast always put her in mind of David, making her feel that he was still
keeping an eye on her from… well, beyond whatever it was that separated the
living from the dead.

She turned on the radio to listen to the midday news,
more out of habit than interest. Terror, conflict and death washed over her
like a breeze moving a net curtain, Her ears pricked up at the news of a woman
in Vermont trampled by a herd of wild reindeer – an animal never before known
in the state. And in Australia, a brand of gourmet Christmas pudding had been
withdrawn after a child died of internal bleeding after eating a bowlful laced
with broken glass.

The scales on the
windowsill moved another inch closer to balancing the books.

Temperatures plummeted in Burbon-on-Lee the night before
the winter solstice. An icy wind cut through the streets without bringing a
single flake of the snow the children hoped for.

“Too cold for snow” opined Harry, resident amateur
meteorologist and barman at the ‘Old Bell’ pub as regulars piled in for something
to chase away the chill. The fire in the 16th century inglenook and
the crush of pre-Christmas drinkers offered a warm refuge. Outside, long
icicles formed on the eaves overhanging the footpath to the car park, trembling
slightly with every gust of wind.

The cowbell above the door jangled as Inspector Crumb
walked in, seeking a warm meal and company after a long day.

“Evening, Tom,” said Harry, wiping spilled beer from
the bar. “What can I get for you?”

“I was thinking of one of Sal’s piping hot meat pies,”
said the policeman, settling into the high stool.

“Coming right up,” said the barman, making a note of
the order. “And what about a pint while you wait? Or are you still on duty?”

Finished for the day, Crumb decided on something from
the pub’s selection of traditional real ales. Home was less than a quarter of a
mile away, he could always walk.

“I’m done for the day. Give me a pint of Green Man.”

Taking a sip from the nutty brew, Crumb looked around
the bar. Regulars sat around their usual tables, sharing the gossip – no doubt
including the demise of old George. A pair of old codgers supped hot toddies
over a game of chess. At the far end of the bar, a gaggle of suited
twenty-somethings hooted in a fit of pre-Christmas boisterousness.

One pint led to another, as Crumb settled into a
comfortable stupour after his hot meal. He didn’t want to go home to the empty
house that had felt as personal as an airport hotel room since the day Jane left
three years ago. He settled back in his seat, contentedly working on The Times
crossword and looking up every now and then to greet familiar faces as they
came and went.

The gang of drunks at the far end of the bar were
getting louder and more obnoxious. If they carried on, he might need to get official
and order them to pipe down.

But no, they’d had enough of the charms of the country
pub and were now on their way out. No doubt to some city bar serving champagne
cocktails with cranberry spiked swizzle sticks.

None were in a fit state to get behind the wheel - but
that wasn’t Crumb’s problem. Just days before Christmas, there would be plenty
of officers on the look-out for drunks stupid enough to attempt to drive.

Crumb raised a hand to signal to Harry for a hot toddy
before calling it a night. But before the barman could respond, a monstrous
gust of wind shook the pub, howling like a wild animal trapped beneath its eaves.
A rumble, a crash and a scream smashed through the cacophony outside. Harry
looked up, threw the bar door open and dashed out to see what had happened.
Driven by his unshakable sense of duty, Crumb followed.

Through the dark peppered with the first wild swirls
of snow loomed an unexpected sight. Not a toppled chimney stack, as he had
expected, but the largest icicle that had dangled from the eaves had plummeted
to the ground. Unfortunately, the head of one of the departing Yuppies had got
in the way.

Spread-eagled in a growing pool of blood mingling with
smashed ice splinters, the be-suited young man was clearly not breathing. The
left side of his face was obliterated and his expensively cut hair matted with
gore and bits of brain. A blonde knelt next to him, hysterical, heaving and
screeching.

Crumb watched, paralysed by shock and fatigue. Around
him, people were running, screaming, shouting. Harry was yelling into his
mobile phone.

Something made Crumb look up and started at a gargoyle-like
face grinning down at him from the rooftop. He blinked and looked again. This
time, he saw only darkness broken by the approaching flashing blue of the
ambulance lights bouncing off the red brick pub wall. Must be seeing things, he
thought. Shock, fatigue and too many pints of Green Man could have that effect.

Marjory was desperate. Time was running out, and the
scales had still not balanced. Payment was due and if it wasn’t made… well, who
knew?

One more, just one more to appease the powers that had
granted her those last few days with David, and the promise that they would –
one day – be reunited.

She grabbed a card from the pile she had finished that
afternoon, and hastily scribbled a greeting inside. She sealed the envelope and
wrote “Inspector Thomas Crumb” on the outside, and prepared to leave the house
to deliver it to the police station.

She let out a strangled scream as she opened the front
door to a man dressed in red. He lowered his fur-trimmed hood to reveal the
ruddy, familiar face of David. Her David, healthy and happy, before the cancer.

But her blood turned to ice as his smile twisted into
a snaggle-toothed snarl and he raised a filthy-clawed hand holding a white
envelope bearing HER name. In the bottom right hand corner, she spied the
shadow gate seal, calling to her like a homing signal.

“I’ve brought your card, Marjory,” rasped the figure
before her, no longer wearing the face she loved. “It’s your turn now. The
balance is paid. Time to go.”

Monday, 31 October 2016

Grace Bellamy stared at the
bundle the midwife thrust into her arms. It was the moment she had so yearned
for, and now she felt nothing but dread.

The newborn infant would have been a
thing of beauty and pride for any mother - but all she saw was a monster. An
abomination she’d brought into the world as a result of the unholy pact she’d
made. Its blue-eyed blink glinted with the promise of a thousand evils it would
unleash upon the world, and when it opened its mouth to yawn, she saw a black
abyss lined with sharp, teeth-like rocks.

“Well done, my dear. It’s a boy,”
said Mrs Duffy, gently wiping a stray strand of sweat-soaked hair from Grace’s
forehead. “Now, don’t you worry. This one is a fine young thing, as hale and
hearty a bairn as I’ve ever seen.”

Grace stared at the kindly
midwife, eyes wide with terror.

“Aye, my dear,” continued the soothing
Aberdeenshire lilt. “Mark my words. No only will this one live, he will do
great things.”

Eugenia Duffy thought she was
reassuring the mother. She’d been at Grace’s side throughout the four births
that had produced nothing but limp, lifeless corpses - waxen dolls never
destined to live a day. Another two had lived a day, but no more.

She believed she knew Grace
Bellamy’s greatest fear.
She was wrong.

In truth, Grace was facing her worst
nightmare in the tightly swaddled bundle that Sarah, her trusted maid, gently
took and placed in the cradle next to her bed. Mrs Duffy set about cleaning up
and straightening the bed covers in preparation for the proud father to meet
his son.

Grace let out a scream more
piercing that any that had accompanied the agony of her labour. The midwife
looked up in shock. Sarah rushed to her mistress. But Grace didn’t see them. She
saw sinister horned demons, flashing blood-stained grins at her through a black
cloud rising out of the cradle.
She knew what they were and why they were there.
It was all her doing.

When she’d realised she was with
child again, her worst fear had been that she’d be planting yet another small,
sad coffin in the family plot at St Wilfred’s. She’d grasped at every straw. Endless
prayers and promises to the heavens. Countless doctors, both in Harley Street
and in the London’s less reputable side-streets, whose patent cures and potions
she took religiously. She even visited clairvoyants who claimed to speak to the
world beyond this one.

One convinced her she was cursed.
But, for a fee, that curse could be broken. They’d visited Highgate Cemetery
and stood before the gothic headstone of Maximillian Colbert, illustrious businessman
and – according to Madame Petrovna – a devoted follower of the Spiritist Allan
Kordec. It was All Saints’ Eve, when the medium claimed the veil dividing the
temporal and spiritual worlds could open to those wishing to connect with the
‘Other Side’.

Colbert had been a strong spirit,
she had said, and would be able to help Grace produce a son and heir that would not
only live, but would “do great things”. She had thrown herself at the headstone
and offered her very soul – and that of her unborn child.

It was only when he heard his new
born cries that she realised the price to be paid.

Through the dark smoke filling
her bed chamber, a figure appeared. At least seven feet tall, black as pitch
and with eyes that glowed red through the gloom. “You have done well,” it
rasped. “My son is born and now it has begun. My kingdom will come.”

He bent to kiss her forehead and tenderly
but firmly pressed a sponge dipped in something sweet-smelling against her
mouth. The fight left her and she fell into a sleep haunted by visions of
pagan monstrosities, apocalyptic battles and a black cloud eating the sun.

The sun was streaming through a
chink in the curtains when she awoke the next morning. Sarah was slumped, snoring,
in the armchair next to the crib. A blackbird sang in the plum tree outside her
window. All that was left of the previous day’s horror was the tinny taste of
blood in her mouth. Touching her tongue to her lower lip, she winced in pain. She’d
bitten it raw in her hysteria.

A hungry cry rose from the
cradle. Sarah grunted, shifted in her chair, and continued snoring. Grace
rose from her bed, and walked to the crib.

Calm now. she knew what she had
to do. Looking down at the newborn, she wondered at her terror the night
before. Now, she was serene, certain. She had a sacred duty to perform. She would
not fail.

Gazing into the blue eyes of the
child in the cradle, she whispered “He will not take us” and took from the
dressing table a long jeweled hairpin she used to hold her heavy locks in place.

“This won’t take long,” she
soothed the crying infant - before plunging the hairpin through the lace gown
into its tiny cursed heart.

FOOTNOTE:
Post-natal psychosis is not a supernatural phenomenon. It is a very real
psychiatric emergency and the quicker it is treated, the better.

If you suspect that you or someone you know may be suffering from it, seek
immediate medical assistance. The risk is higher for women who have (or who
have a first-degree relative with) a history of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia
or schizoaffective, and for those who have previously suffered from psychosis.
If you fall into the above categories and are planning a pregnancy, do NOT stop
taking your prescribed medication. Take folic acid on your obstetrician’s
advice and seek a referral to a Preconception Care Clinic. For more, see My Story of Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Pregnancy

Sunday, 30 October 2016

Today’s
offering from Around The Cauldron is a raw, gory tale from the prolific pen of
guest storyteller Virginia Carraway Stark. Prepare to have your gooses bumped!

He
reached out towards her, his hands already soaked in the blood of her boyfriend
and the other party goers. His face leered at her through the mask that hung
loosely on his emaciated face. His teeth were yellow and his breath smelled
like rotten meat. Moving slowly, as though it were a nightmare he reached out
and stroked her chestnut hair. She moaned, it would have been a sob but she
didn't dare, she didn't dare flinch from his touch, she didn't dare bat his
hand away. Even his brief touch on her hair left gobs of flesh and blood on her
hair. She stank like blood and death now. She stank like him. Her eyes drifted
to his amputated hand that had been replaced with a three pronged gardening
tool. He raised it up, he had been left handed before one of his last victims
had chopped off his hand and it was this strange weapon that he now lifted
against his cheek, prongs pointed out. He was getting ready to slice her.

She
relented and let out a deep, sobbing moan of terror. Her eyes were roving, her
hands looking for something, anything to use as a weapon. Behind his askance
mask she saw his lips snarl into what was, for Matthew, a smile of joy. He had
terrorized her mother and been locked up for it, it had been her mother who had
taken his hand, her mother whose body she had found clawed to pieces behind the
wheel of their Chevy.

She found a wire coat hanger with her right hand, her
left hand was held up in a pathetic warding off gesture. Using all the
considerable adrenaline at her disposal she pulled out the hanger and jabbed it
into the eye of the mask. It punctured deep, and to Mandy's visible surprise
she felt a 'pop' as it entered his eye and he howled and reeled away from where
he had her cornered. She was so surprised that it took her a moment to recover
but then she kneed him hard in the balls and pushed him over. The hanger was
still sticking out of his eye. Mandy pulled out the hanger, the idea that it
had had one lucky hit made it a talisman of luck in her mind, his eye came
trailing out of the socket and she screamed and popped it off the hanger. Time
to run, it was only a few steps from where he had her trapped to the door and
possible escape but each step was a lifetime.

Revenge
raged in her mind along with the fear. She wasn't going to run. He wasn't going
to get locked up again only to come back at her or even or own children one
day. That sucker wasn't going to leave the house.

He was going to die.

Canadian wordsmith Virginia Carraway Stark has a diverse portfolio and has
many publications. Over the years she has developed this into a wide range of
products from screenplays to novels to articles to blogging to travel
journalism. She has been published by many presses from grassroots to Simon and
Schuster for her contribution to 'Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Possible' as
seen on ABC. She has been an honorable
mention at Cannes Film Festival for her screenplay, “Blind Eye” and was
nominated for an Aurora Award. She also placed in the final top three
screenplay shorts in the 'Reel to Reel' Film Festival.

She
has written short stories in well over twenty anthologies as well as magazines,
novels, poetry, poetry anthologies, blogs, journals and many other venues. She
is Editor-in-Chief at StarkLight Press as well as for Outermost: Journal of the
Paranormal. She formerly worked writing medical papers into language for the
lay person and worked on scientific papers for numerous platforms.

Saturday, 29 October 2016

It's that time of year again. There's a chill in the air, leaves are turning, night dominates the day, and we seek the comfort of human warmth and companionship as our thoughts turn to the darker side. Hallowe'en, All Saints' Eve, Samhain, call it what you will, is almost upon us. A time when it's said the membrane between this world and the next is stretched to its thinnest, even to breaking point. So, let's gather around the fire, turn off the lights and share some dark little tales around the cauldron.

Hunted by AJ MillenI liked it there. The damp embrace of the soil held me like a lover’s
arms. Darkness enfolding me like a cloak, it was where I belonged. And now, after
so long, I belonged nowhere else.

It had taken a while. I hadn’t wanted to be there at first. I’d feared
it more than anything. Anything but the men with dogs and blazing torches, chasing me
through the night, baying for revenge for some imagined hurt and demanding I be
fed to the cleansing fire.

The thought of refuge
in the casket had given me pause. Black Death had taken Old Man Rivers and his
fresh grave lay open, waiting for its covering of soil to insulate the village from
the canker that riddled him. Unclean, it was only by virtue of his standing in
the church that they’d buried him in holy ground.

There was nothing
holy about him when I scrambled, like a hunted animal, into the box with him.
The stench of decay rose up like a cloud from his body as my weight pushed him
down. It wasn’t the first time his body had been pressed against mine and I’d
turned my face away. But this time I was on top, and he was no longer in a
state to force himself on me. The old goat.

I’d wriggled myself
around to face upwards, ready to emerge from the casket once my pursuers were
gone. Waiting for the moment when it would be safe to come out and flee to
somewhere no-one knew me, or my reputation.

I lay there, barely
daring to breathe, trying to still the heartbeat hammering at my chest. Men’s
voices rang out, promising hell fire and brimstone as punishment – but not
before they had dealt with me in their own all-too-earthly way. The hounds
barked randomly, scratching and snuffling around the graveyard, giving the old
man’s plague pit a wide berth.

I must have slept.
Wiped out by exhaustion. The next thing I knew, weak sunlight was seeping
through the slats in the lid of the box, and I could hear the first birdsong as
day broke. I was about to push the lid open when I heard footsteps. Then a
tuneless whistle and a scrape of a shovel as it was thrust into the mound of soil next to the grave.

A clod of earth
thudded against the coffin. Fingers of darkness crept back in as dirt
trickled through the cracks into my eyes and mouth. More thuds followed as the
earth was piled back into the hole, enclosing me, holding me. I couldn’t cry
out. Moke the gravedigger would surely betray me to the Elders. Anything to get
his revenge for the time I’d refused him, sent him packing with scratches
across his face like he’d be swiped with a pitchfork. So I waited, listening to
the earth covering me like a thick winter blanket and waiting for Moke to
finish before I dug my way out.

Until I heard the
heavy drag of stone. Pulled over the loose earth and pushed into place,
trapping me beneath its bulk. There was no fighting my way up to push it aside.
The stone sealed my fate as surely as it sealed Old Man Rivers’ grave. I would
die here, pressed against my tormentor, and slowly fade away to nothing more
than wormfeed.

But I didn’t.

Days passed. I slept
fitfully, losing track of the natural rhythms of the earth. Time was unknown,
stretching into weeks, even months. And somehow, I remained alive and strong.

I was also very, very
hungry.

A mania took hold of
me. I thrust my hands to the side, beating at the wooden slats, pulling at the
spaces where they overlapped, pushing through into the surrounding soil
to find something, anything, to feed on.

At first just spindly
roots and seeds, then I found an earthworm. Soft, yielding, undulating in my
hand. I brought it to my cracked lips and bit into it. It continued to squirm
as it spilled its gritty innards onto my tongue but I swallowed it greedily.
More worms went the same way, as did beetles crawling through the dirt, and a
small mole whose velvety hide and sharp claws made me retch and gag. I had
begun to feed.

Centuries passed. I
became part of the circle of life beneath the graveyard soil. Old Man Rivers
rotted to nothing beneath me, leaving only harmless bones and rotten rags. The
damp of the soil ate into his wooden box, devouring it, making it one with
itself. My reach extended in my search for food, fingers feeling further every
day for sustenance until they broke free of the earth. It was a joyous shock to
wiggle my fingers against cool air instead of clammy clods of clay, so I pushed
some more.

Inching my way along,
I formed a passage from my resting place to the world above.

I emerged from the
gap where the soil had sunk beneath the stone now sat skewed at an awkward
angle. A clean breeze caressed my cheeks, and I blinked into the evening gloom.
Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. Dozens more headstones cluttered
the churchyard, and there was a low persistent roar accompanying the sounds of
nature around me.

Harsh laughter
alerted me and sent me scuttling back to my hole. Looking out, I saw men, not
long out of boyhood, drinking from brown bottles. One was beating a headstone
with a hammer, cackling with the glee of an imbecile determined to destroy
something, anything.

A new thirst awoke
within me. I slipped unseen from the earth that had been my home for so many
centuries, driven by a new, urgent hunger that would not be denied.

I was transformed. No
longer hunted, I was now the huntress.

And the hunt was on.

(Photo credit: LensMan Nick, a.k.a. Nikos
Paraskevas)

There are more spooky stories to come as we gallop like headless horsemen towards Hallowe'en. Watch this space.

Sunday, 23 October 2016

In just over a week, it will be All Hallows’ Eve, a day when (according to Christian tradition which usurped the older Pagan festival of Samhain) ghoulies and ghosties and all manners of evil supernatural beings come out for a night of revelry before the holy All Saints’ Day.

It's a great excuse to revel in the thrill of frightening ourselves, so I'm planning on posting one or two dark little tales for Hallowe'en under the heading "Around The Cauldron" (like telling scary stories around the camp bonfire, but with a witchy element added).

Have any of you got some some creepy tales to tell?

If you fancy having them added as a guest post, drop me a line with your short story, a brief bio, an author pic and something to illustrate your tale.

Picture the
scene. You’re chatting happily away to someone you’ve just met, thinking how sympatico they are, delighted at that
instant ‘click’ when you first shook hands or smiled a ‘pleased to me you’.
This is your kind of person, you’re thinking. Someone you can talk to about
anything and everything, confident that they will ‘get’ you, and not think you a
mind-numbing moron or a pretentious intellectual snob.

Then,
they drop an O Bomb. Or perhaps I should say an OO Bomb. Just as you’re
wittering away, certain that they share your outlook on life, they drop an
(Outrageous) Opinion into the conversation to disavow you of that sweet, sweet illusion.

If you’re
smart, you let it pass, inwardly chanting Voltaire’s "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it" mantra before steering the subject in the direction of fluffy kittens or the merits of
cheesecake over brownies.

If you’re
smart. Or perhaps I should say “smarter than me”.

My initial intentions are
always good, really they are. After the first flash of “WHAT did they just say?”,
the shock realisation that my inner idiot has misread the person before me, and
a brief pause as my brain recallibrates itself, I try to gloss over and take the conversation to less controversial territory.

All well and good – until they
repeat, reiterate and challenge me with more O Bombs.

Many a time
have friends who know all too well had to drag me away from heated
debates in bars after one too many O Bombs have been dropped. Many more are the times
when I've received a warning kick under the table accompanied by raised
eyebrows and a hissed “Mum. No. Stop” from the embarrassed offspring (who also knows me all too well). But I can’t
help it. Though largely a
live-and-let-live type of gal, I have my own opinions and many of them are
strongly held. If you get in my face with statements designed (I’m sure) to
provoke a reaction from me, there comes a point when you will get them.

Be
careful what you wish for.

We live in
confusing times. There are more hot potatoes these days that at the Great
Potato Bake in Hyde Park (no, it doesn’t exist - but it damn well should).
Brexit, Trump vs Clinton, climate change, jet trails, immigration, vaccines,
home schooling, refugees, bathroom designations, the F word (no, not
that one, the other one that seems to put far more people into a panic), fracking, fox
hunting, badger culls, whether Starbucks spiced pumpkin lattes qualify as real
coffee, and so much more.

The trouble
is, you can’t always tell where someone stands from the slogan on their
t-shirt.

I grew up in simpler times. I was 14 when Britain’s first female PM
sailed into No.10 Downing Street quoting St Francis of Assissi. My naïve nascent
feminist (yeah, that’s the F Word I was talking about) rejoiced at the thought
of a woman in charge at last. It didn’t take me long to change my mind. But one
thing was for sure, love her or hate her, you knew where you stood with Maggie.

These days,
it’s much harder to work out where the lines lie. They seem to be scribbled
in the sand that’s constantly being washed by the tides of history. And you can never tell who's been paddling in the shallows.

So, to get
beyond the preamble, how can you avoid that awkward moment when you realise you’re
teetering on the precipice of a heated debate with someone that you so want to like you?

Here's
my not-very-reliable guide to etiquette in an uncertain age.

Try very hard not to roll your eyes
(I’m famously bad at this bit).

Remind yourself that everyone is
entitled to their opinion, even if they are wrong.

Count to 100, lose count halfway,
then start again.

Attempt diversionary tactics. Ask
them what star sign they are, what their favourite band is, or if they
understood what the hell “Inception” was all about (warning, even these subjects can be minefields of
controversy so tread carefully and feign indifference even if they respond with utter tosh).

As a last resort, point and shout "Oh look! A squirrel!"

If they insist on continuing to bombard you
with their rhetoric, take a deep breath and…

Let them have yours. If they have
the right to express their opinion, so do you. And if they don’t feel they need to
follow the etiquette of polite conversation, then neither do you.

After all, a vanilla latte may be a safe, popular choice, but a double shot of espresso is the real thing - and it's much more stimulating.